I think it’s very important to also discuss the art of songwriting as the instrumental verses the lyric-oriented song.

I know that being a true instrumentalist by nature, my tendency is to first see a song as a guitar part, literally, many times long before I have a lyric idea. In fact, I can get almost TOO comfortable with a piece of music for a little too long in its instrumental state, way too long before I ever put words to it! Conversely, there are songs that even though were more conceived as lyrics and music together, that I find much later I enjoy playing as pure instrumentals. This is a great feeling, because I feel as if I’m re-interpreting one of my own songs, and developing a new-found understanding and appreciation of them musically.

I mean, for me, it’s got to have the music be impressive to me before I can even begin to feel right about continuing with the creative process, and making it a full-blown song. Yet, along the way, when we are writing, we are constantly making good and bad decisions, accepting and rejecting, and of course, just always trying new ideas out!

Everyone ends up approaching songwriting differently, and collaboration is a great way to stimulate the old writing chops! I know this fro I am currently working on an exciting new collaboration project with a great and well-established Nashville-based writer. It’s fun because he lives for writing, whereas I live for playing, and the two different worlds coming together makes for a great hotplate of ideas! It’s an all-instrumental project, too, which makes it unusual for him and comfy for me! In fact, some of the ideas we are working on are good pieces of music I’ve had lying around forever…some for as long as 25 years or more! Just shows you…..a good song or piece of a song, is timeless, and can always come to life once again!!